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Building a Linux XBOX Cluster

Posted by samzenpus on from the imagine-a-xbox-cluster dept.

Hack Jandy writes "Getting Linux to work on an XBOX became relatively easy a few years ago, and building an XBOX render farm became the next logical solution. Anandtech bought 8 XBOXes and clustered them into a neat project any hardware hacker could appreciate. Check out the results as Anand pits his 8-way cluster against some Xeon and Opteron workstations as well."

10 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Can you imagine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    a beowulf cluster of Lunix Xboxen?

  2. Re:The benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Keep in mind that the specific benchmarks used scale well with clusters. Many other workstation apps won't. For those you'll still want the $3400 SMP Opteron ;-)

  3. really not a bad idea if you think about it by necrogram · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you think about it, its a way to build a very large scaled out cluster using dirt cheap commody hardware. Where could something liek this be used? try your local high school or vocational school. Wanna build a cluster to give hands on experiance to the students? 20 cluster nodes for under 3 grand

  4. Hardly by kinema · · Score: 4, Insightful
    a neat project any hardware hacker could appreciate
    Hardly! Running Linux or some other OS on an XBox might have been a neat trick a few years ago but now it's old hat. Hell, my grandmother could do it if I pointed her to a good website. Likwise with the Beowolf cluster. Such clusters aren't exactly difficult to construct anymore especially with the advent of projects like OSCAR.
  5. Just like to point out... by rubee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd just like to point out that the point of a cluster is not to link together a bunch of cheap machines to save money; the time and energy required to write paralleled programs far exceed the cost of hardware. Rather, the point is to gather the highest end commodity machines you can afford and attain mainframe-level performance.

    1. Re:Just like to point out... by rubee · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First off, I seriously doubt many highschools are teaching parallel computing as part of their computer science curriculum. Second, a decent cluster of 8 nodes or so can be had for less than 10k, well within academic research budgets. Third, I never said anything was wrong with it; I'm just saying its not something thats practical.

  6. spoiler by robpoe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the spoiler? its not worth the time or effort - the XBox has too little memory to be effective at really anything...

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  7. Where's the cheese? by Ratso+Baggins · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Compare Wal-Mart PC to the Xbox for this application

    Price:
    PC < Xbox + modChip

    CPU:
    Xbox < PC

    RAM:
    Xbox < PC

    Cool:
    PC < Xbox - (that's arguable considering you are adding to the Xbox sales figures.)

    WTF? This one I just dont get (beyond why not)

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    --
    "we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.

  8. factor in the GPU by mo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Note that these tests only uses the computing power of the main processor, while the GPU is sitting idly by doing nothing. With a little effort, and perhaps the use of some tools that harness the computing power of the gpu, these clusters would get a lot faster. It may not help in tasks like the distributed kernel compile, but things like parallel raytracing which can use the massively parallel floating point capabilities of the xbox graphics card could really benefit here.

    In the future, the playstation 3 will really provide an opportunity for some enterprising cluster builders for couple of reasons. First, the initial release of most console hardware is where the manufacturer sells them for the biggest loss. Sony actually makes money on PS2s now even if you don't buy any games, but when they release the PS3, they'll be selling at a loss and your performance-to-cost ratio is going to be huge. Secondly, if the architecture decisions behind the PS3 make it anything like the PS2, it will be much easier to harness the vector engines for general purpose calculations (compared to other graphics cards). Most of the horsepower in the PS2 (and potentially in the PS3) is in it's parallel vector engines. While the general purpose processor is reasonably fast (300 mhz mips), the vector units can dispatch a ton of parallel floating point operations which enable it to run games that would crush a 300 mhz pentium with a comparable circa-2000 graphics card.

  9. From TFA... 733MHz not enough? by terrencefw · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The XBOX PC is just a 733MHz Pentium III with 64MB of RAM. 733MHz is extremely weak by today's expectations. 733MHz is not enough to run PC games today, barely enough to run Windows XP and certainly not enough to do anything practical, but play XBOX, or is it?
    Depends what your expectations are. I'm sat here on my 500MHz P3 laptop, which does everything I need it to. That includes highly practical things like web development, graphics work and my business accounts and marketing. I have to admit that it would suck with only 64MB though, so they're barking up the wrong tree by saying that it's the CPU that's useless. Sure it would be nice to have a brand new super 3l33t boxxx, but I have better things to blow two grand on right now.
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